How fitting that Gigi made this observation on the eve of the 55th anniversary of Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her bus seat. I am increasingly convinced that this is my generation’s civil rights fight & we will be judged on the kind of virtual space we leave for generations to come:
Since the order largely follows the never-introduced legislative framework developed by Representative Henry Waxman, we know that the rules for wireline and wireless broadband Internet access are treated differently. Under that framework, wireline Internet access providers are prohibited from “unjustly or unreasonably” discriminating when transmitting traffic. Wireless Internet access providers are only prohibited from blocking “lawful Internet websites” or “lawful applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services,…” This sets up a world with two Internets, one wired and one wireless, which in turn disproportionately affects people of color and America’s poor, who tend to rely more on mobile wireless broadband. The FCC can start by prohibiting blocking of any lawful application, service, content or device and then can provide either a technological or time limited glide path to full non-discrimination.
